Deploying Data Protection Manager 2007 (Part 4)

Using the Recover section of the DPM 2007 Administrator Console

Using the DPM 2007 Administrator Console we can recover all sorts of protected data from a single point of view. To start any recovery process we just need to click on the Recovery item. We have two tabs: Browse and Search, the first tab allows us to list all protected servers and their data that has been protected by DPM server.

We can expand Data on Disks and Tapes, domain name, server name and we will be able to see all components that have been protected by DPM. In this article series we are protecting two shared folders, and these folders can be accessed either by driver letter (in our case C:\) or All Protected Shares. Let's click on C:\ and on the right hand side we have a calendar which shows, in bold, all dates that have at least one recovery point of the selected item, beside this calendar we have all the available recovery points for that day, and we also have an icon indicating where the protected data is located (source or disk).

Figure 01

If you have a large environment with several protected servers you can filter by server name. To do that, just fill in the server name under the Server field and click on the Filter button. Then only the server will be listed in the right hand side of the recovery section.

Figure 01 shows all the shares, but we might want to recover a single file that is under those folders, to do that just double click on the directory folder and we will see all the files and subfolders of that specific share.

Now, let's click on the second tab called Search (Figure 02). In this tab we can search the protected data with queries using some variables. First of all we have three different types of data to search, they are: Files and folders, Mailboxes and Sharepoint. Each option has its own parameters to facilitate the search of the respective data.

Let's create a file to find all the .txt files (Folder or file name section) during a certain range of time, (Recovery point range section) which might be in the server and path drive specified in the Original location (required) section. After creating a query to match our needs, we just need to click on the Search button. On the right hand side we will have all the occurrences found and we have some useful information such as: file name, path, last modified, size, Recovery Point date and finally where the information is located (disk or tape).

Figure 02

Before starting our recovery process, let's go back to the Browse tab to validate the Show all recovery points feature. We can use that feature to list all available recovery points associated with the selected data in a single screen (Figure 03), instead of having to change the days in the calendar to validate if the item is there. In our example we are looking at all available recovery points for the share02 folder. We can see that we have only two recovery points available to recover that data from and all information is located on a Disk.

Figure 03

Recovering data using DPM 2007

Now that we have just seen an overview of the recovery section, let's select a file to be recovered and let's click on the Recover… item in Toolbox Actions. Follow these steps to finish the recovery process:

1. Review Recovery Selection. After selecting the data and clicking on Recover… the first screen of the Recovery Wizard will contain the details of the data that will be recovered (Figure 04). Let's just click on Next.

Figure 04

2. Select Recovery Type. We can choose the original location, an alternate location or Copy to tape (where the entire volume where the data resides will be copied to tape). Let's select Recover to the original location and click on Next. (Figure 05)

Figure 05

3. Specify Recover Options. We can play with some options (Figure 06), if the data to be restored already exists in the original location (chose in the previous step) we can create a copy, skip or overwrite. Let's create a copy, we can also play with the security permissions where we can choose to apply the original permissions (Apply the security settings of the recovery point version) or use the current source permission (Apply security settings of the destination computer).
   
   If the DPM has the SMTP server defined we can tick the option Send an e-mail when this recovery and fill out the user name that should be notified when the recovery data is available.
   To continue our process, just click on Next.

Figure 06

4. Summary. Just an overview of all our choices up to now, click on Next.
5. Recovery Status. Final screen will appear displaying the operation result (Figure 07), how much time was spent in the operation and how much data was transferred from DPM server to the server.

Figure 07

Now that we have seen how to recover an item using DPM 2007 we can use the same process to recover a mailbox, SQL Database, Virtual Server, etc…

Controlling network bandwidth

We can control the network bandwidth used by a DPM server.

1. Open DPM Administrator Console.
2. In the Navigation Bar click on Management.
3. In the Display Pane click on the designated server that you want to throttle.
4. In the Action Pane click on Throttle computer…
   
   In the Work Schedule section we can configure the days of the week and the start and end time, everything outside of this is non-work hours. After configuring our work hours properly we can assign throttling in both cases, we can use kbps and Mbps. By default, when the Throttle feature is enabled the default value will be 128 Kbps for Work hours and 9999 Mbps for non-work hours (unlimited), as shown in Figure 08.

Figure 08

But before using this feature shown above we must make sure that the QoS component is installed and enabled on DPM Server and on the agents as well.

1. Enter the properties of the network connection that DPM will use to protect the designated server.
2. By default the QoS Packet Scheduler is not installed. Click on Install.
3. In the Select Network component Type, click on Service and click Add.
4. Click on QoS Packet Scheduler and click OK.
5. In the Local Connection Properties, make sure that the QoS Packet Scheduler is checked, as shown in Figure 09.

Figure 09

Repeat this process in all the agents that will use the throttle feature and in the DPM server as well.